Thursday, October 18, 2012

NOVEMBER ELECTION 2012

Dear Clients:

Our general election ballots are set to be mailed soon for the November election. We want to take a moment as your counsel to share our recommendations with you on the most important contests on your ballot.

The open seat on the Supreme Court is Position Nine. This is an open seat, vacated by Justice Tom Chambers, who was a champion for the rule of law and citizens’ rights. The final two candidates both have good records on civil justice. However, I want to recommend that you join us in voting for Sheryl McCloud.

Sheryl McCloud is a true champion of individual rights, and true believer in Constitutional rights, and we believe will fight hard for many years to come to protect those rights for all of us. She has received a huge range of endorsements, from organizations and newspapers across the political spectrum. We urge you to support Sheryl.

We want to share our views on two statewide offices of great importance to citizens and civil justice: Governor and Attorney General. In the Governor’s race, Jay Inslee is the clear civil justice candidate. Prior to public office, Jay was a prosecutor and then an attorney representing injured persons as a lawyer in Selah and Yakima. He then began a long career of public service where he has diligently protected citizens’ constitutional and civil rights, and has been a champion of worker and consumer protections.

In contrast, his opponent Rob McKenna has fought to remove or reduce citizens’ ability to hold government accountable through the court system. His first request legislation as Attorney General would have taken away right to hold the government or any government contractor accountable - whether from poisoned food in schools, faulty bridge construction, or any other of the most reckless or careless acts that lead to serious injury and death. He wants to let private insurance companies provide workers’ compensation, even though every county in the state voted against Initiative 1082, which would have allowed that.

We strongly support Jay Inslee as the candidate to protect our rights and our civil justice system, and we respectfully suggest that this is the most important race for protecting our civil justice system this year.

The second race is for Attorney General. The Attorney General is the chief legal officer for the State of Washington and its citizens, and 95% of the office’s job is representing the state in civil cases. We believe it is necessary that the Attorney General believe in a government accountable to the protection of its citizenry and who shares a commitment to going after the powerful special interests that harm the public by abusing our laws.

We strongly recommend Bob Ferguson for this job. Bob is a lawyer and King County Councilman, who has committed his campaign to protecting public safety, going after fraudulent actors like mortgage lenders and servicers, prosecuting polluters, and protecting taxpayers against fraud and abuse. Bob would be a champion for us all as Attorney General.

We hope you have found this information helpful. We are sharing our views because of the strong belief and commitment in our office, that every client who walks in our door seeking a chance for justice through the court system should have a fair shot. We depend on these public servants to make sure our rights are protected. The outcome of this year’s election will have a huge impact on our rights and our civil justice system. These candidates will fight to protect all of our rights.

Please, feel free to share this, if you think it’s helpful, with family and friends. Regardless of your views on these races, though, please make sure you vote on or before November 6th. We owe it to each other to participate and have our voice heard in our electoral process.

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Williams, Wyckoff & Ostrander, PLLC

About Us

We have brought together lawyers with over 75 years of collective experience.

Our three lawyers have the backgrounds and experiences essential to our commitment to represent injured persons at every step in the legal process. Our lawyers are all experienced trial lawyers.

With an emphasis on workers' compensation, we are experienced with the laws governing the rights of injured persons. We actively pursue claims and lawsuits on behalf of injured workers.

We believe our firm is small enough to continue to provide the "personal touch" in representation, while the experience and knowledge of our attorneys, in the area we emphasize, is comparable to that of firms of any size. Although we have a skilled support staff, we normally try to have our lawyers communicate directly with our clients.